20 September

Essential Builds – Everest

Written by Ryan Costello

Essential Builds Leave a Comment

Ice or snow, Essential Builds is ready to go!

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog where no Essence20 build is too big, and no pup is too small.

I’m Ryan Costello, one of the designers of the Essence20 system and an author on the G.I. JOE, Transformers, and My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebooks. As of this writing, I’ve written over 300 000 words for Essence20, contributing to over a dozen products and counting.

So it ends up this site hasn’t seen the last of Paw Patrol. But did you know Paw Patrol played a minor but memorable role in the development of Essence20?

Story Time!

During the design of Essence20, there was a point where we had a communal sense for the three most important elements of character creation, but nothing firm. So, after one too many meetings where we were stuck using vague terms, I volunteered to establish the terms and parameters by the next meeting.

At the time, I knew that we had the My Little Pony license in addition to the three licenses we were working on (Power Rangers, G.I. JOE, and Transformers), so whatever I came up with needed to fit all four. To confirm the flexibility of the system, I also outlined how these options would work for a super hero game, another license we didn’t have and that I refuse to name for fear of rumours spreading, and Paw Patrol (which we also didn’t have the license for, but I have no fear that anyone gets excited enough to spread rumours about Essence20 Paw Patrol).

I came to the next meeting with the following outlined: Influences were impactful life moments and strong personality traits. These would be universal across all systems as a tool for customizing your PC’s personality and giving mechanical benefits (and drawbacks) for your backstory.

Roles were, simply put, our Class analog. They reflected how you contributed on adventures and were the area in which a character grew through a campaign. These would be thematically tied to the setting, but functionally the same.

That left Origins as our most flexible option. Described vaguely as what you were before you answered the call to adventure, it could be your attitude, your training, your chassis, your creature type, or your dog breed.

Ends up, Paw Patrol fit Essence20 really well. If I thought there was any market for a Paw Patrol RPG, I might have pushed for Renegade to try to get the license.

Who Is Everest?

Everest is a forest ranger stationed in the snowy mountains by Adventure Bay, the home of teen genius Ryder’s canine rapid response team, The Paw Patrol. As a Siberian Husky, Everest is one of the team’s bigger pups, although a lot of that is floof to keep her warm in subzero temperatures.

Members of Paw Patrol are equipped with backpacks called Pup Packs that deploy state of the art gadgetry useful for the Pup’s purpose on the team. Everest can deploy a grappling hook for precarious rescues on ice, over cliffs, and other dangerous environments on a snowy mountain. She can also deploy a snowboard, when she needs to get downhill in a hurry.

Ryder also equips his pups with specialized vehicles. Although each Pup operates enough supped up rides to make Batman jealous, they all tend to favor one over the rest. For Everest, that’s the Snow Cat, an all terrain arctic vehicle with a deployable pneumatic claw.

Moreover, Everest is the breakout new pup added to the team during season 2 of Paw Patrol. Even though she’s not considered a core member of the team, she appears on more merchandise that at least two core members of the team and could even be in the top 4.

Building Essence20 Everest

I could have made any of the Paw Patrol members as Essence20 PCs. As I explained, the series just lends itself well to our character creation options. However, most of them would be Technicians. Skye would be yet another Rocketeer. Rex would be a Dino-Hunter, which is cool! And they would also make use of the Personal Vehicle rules from Quartermaster’s Guide To Gear.

I chose Everest because she gave me the most unique options, and one I was surprised to realize I’d never used.

Role

Ranger (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

Now, I can’t be sure (because searching my Essential Builds working file for “Ranger” nets 173 returns, mostly Power Rangers related) but I believe this is the blog’s first Ranger. And since I designed it, I have thoughts.

I went into the Ranger with an eye for a sweet spot. As an environmental specialist, the Role needed to be noticeably better in specific circumstances, and therefore baseline a little worse in every other situation, but not so much in either direction that it threw off the balance of the group. For that reason, I think Adaptation is one of the most clever mechanics I ever designed. It toggles between limited and unlimited access to the Role’s abilities, based on their current and preferred environments.

And just like the JOEs assign arctic troopers like Snow Job and Iceberg to non-arctic missions, The Paw Patrol calls on Everest even if snow isn’t part of the job. They just call on her more when it is.

As a Ranger, Everest gets multiple Environmental Exposure abilities to represent what she’s learned for and from surviving in her environment. We’ll give her the utility options. Tracker, Kitbasher, and Natural Medic all feel like the kind of options a rescue pup would need to know. We would have given her Weapon Training first, to get her Qualified with the Grappler, a Restricted weapon, if that wasn’t already part of her Faction.

Faction

Freedom Fighters (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Intercontinental Adventures)

Expect to see Intercontinental Adventures in the Faction section a lot, because the Generic Factions it introduces are dream makers for this blog. No, I did not add them to Intercontinental Adventures just for the sake of Essential Builds, but yes, I was giddy at the potential they unlocked as I wrote them.

Part of defining a generic Freedom Fighter faction is determining what four Skills (one per Essence Score, best represent it. For Paw Patrol, those Skills are Brawn (because no job is too big, no pup is too small), Driving, Alertness, and Persuasion.

Focus

Peacekeeper (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Ferocious Fighters)

No need to swap Focus options here, the Peacekeeper Ranger Focus from Factions In Action vol 1 is the perfect fit for a rescue pup.

Also, in case it wasn’t clear, I’m avoiding any ironically funny choices for a Paw Patrol character. Yes, I could have made Everest a Silent Weapons Expert, and sure, the character is more combat capable by default than we’ve seen her portrayed in media. But the challenge here is capturing her as sincerely as she’s represented.

Personal Vehicle

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Quartermaster’s Guide To Gear introduces Personal Vehicle rules for campaigns in which all characters mount up. You don’t have to get further into an episode of Paw Patrol than the intro to see how heavily the character’s vehicles play into the narrative.

A personal vehicle is defined as “a vehicle that is no larger than Long, can be operated by 1 driver, and whose Threat Level is no higher than half the PC’s Threat Level.” That means Everest is stuck with a Surveillance Cycle at level 1. However, by level 8 she’ll unlock access to the Polar Battle Bear, which is the closest a G.I. JOE vehicle comes to her trusty Snow Cat. Yes, even more than G.I. JOE’s Snow Cat (which is too large for her to ever gain as a personal vehicle, unfortunately).

Origin

Driven (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game: A Jump Through Time)

Not something I thought I’d ever think, but it feels good to be moving away from the G.I. JOE content for this build. Makes me wonder if Paw Patrol really is a paramilitary strike force disguised as a rescue team…

Driven’s a fun Origin. Even though it is found in the Power Rangers time travel sourcebook, it could have fit into the Core Rulebook. It’s about taking risks and not giving up, which combine to cover, like, half the themes of Paw Patrol episodes.

Because we’re making a pup, we’ll also be adding the Quadepedal Origin option from the Gen Con Worlds Collide: The Pony Puzzle Event – Character Preparations blog post. Being better at unarmed combat doesn’t benefit Everest, but obviously having four legs does.

Influences

1st Adventurer (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

2nd Community Helper (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

3rd Spring Into Action (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

I confess, this isn’t the most exciting selection of Influences. It’s not even that specific to Everest, but rather represents the standard issue Paw Patrol Influences. I’m not sure what the perfect Everest Influence would look like.

Essence Scores and Skills

Social 6

Paw Patrol missions are pretty evenly split between helping people and helping animals, so I’ve given her 4 Ranks in Persuasion (to meet her Faction Access requirements) and 2 in Animal Handling and Persuasion. That does mean we aren’t getting anything out of our Focus’ 1st level Perk, and honestly, in retrospect, I wish Peacekeeper’s Cultural Connection Perk went both ways, and let us use Persuasion on Culture Skill Tests.

Speed 5

I don’t love that Everest’s Speed is so high, but there are a few reasons for it. First of all, Driving is a Speed Skill. Second of all, we’re using Driving to meet the other +d8 Rank in a Freedom Fighter Skill and gain access to the faction. Third of all, the grappler weapon that we’re using to represent her grappling hook is a rare Finesse-only weapon. It’d be nice if we could get Aggressive Driver at 1st level, so that she could use Strength to increase her Driving Skill, but alas.

Smarts 4

Most of the missions we see Everest partake in are arctic rescue missions. For that, she needs Ranks in Survival. I went all in, with all 4 of her Smarts Skill Points going into that Skill. Because the Natural Medic Environmental Exposure lets us use Survival to heal damage, Everest will be able to double as scout and healer by level 2.

Strength 1

Although Everest is one of the biggest pups, she’s never been depicted as especially strong. So we may be settling on Strength 1, with both Ranks going into Athletics for her winter sport skills, but it’s not the worst.

Conclusion

I joked about this not being the first time I write about Paw Patrol on the site, but truthfully, it’s probably the last. My daughters have both aged out of the show and toys. However, last weekend, our local theatre had a Community Day where families could see select movies for free. Curiously, the only movies they offered were the two Paw Patrol movies. Because the movies skew a little older than the show, and my daughters liked the first one but hadn’t seen the second, we made an outing out of it.

The next time I do something Paw Patrol related, it’s probably packing up our toys. I thought I’d close up this era with a nod to a brand that just happened to play a big part in my family’s life for a few years, and a little part in the design of Essence20.